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Laraaji has spent the past 40 years trying to ease the world’s stress. He creates soothing ambient music, and across several releases, Laraaji’s done his best to make you forget he’s even there. For his splendid new pair of releases, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun, the new age musician and foremost purveyor of laughter meditation compiles another reflective set, full of the drifting ambience and life affirmations you’d expect from Laraaji.

The musician is probably best known for his 1980 album Ambient 3: Day of Radiance, which was produced by preeminent ambient composer Brian Eno (who discovered Laraaji playing in Washington Square Park and asked him to record an album as part of Eno’s famed “ambient” album series). Much like Laraaji’s previous work, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun entice a deep state of rest. The idea for Sun Gong, Laraaji said recently, was to construct an immersive listen that highlights the transformative power of ancient gong tones. For centuries, the gong has been used as a calming device in yoga and meditational therapy. In holistic medicine, it helps resolve emotional and physical dissonance, bringing the body and spirit to one accord. When coupled with light music, gong meditation has also been known to heal physical ailments.

Sun Gong consists of two extended compositions, “Sun Gong No. 1” and “Sun Gong No. 2.” It is a monotonous drone of wafting cymbals, chimes, and penetrating bass—a mix of dark acoustic and electronic sounds that slowly become brighter. The music’s subdued hum brings to mind Eno as well as contemporary artists like Tim Hecker and Oneohtrix Point Never, except the mood feels divine in an almost undefinable way. It’s minimalistic and trance-like, made for headphone listening and intimate spaces, but in no way does it fade into the background.

Laraaji filters his instrument through various electronic effects, crafting massive waves of metallic sound. Near the eight-minute mark of “Sun Gong No. 1,” the musician pares down his main device, allowing the synths to breathe. Around the 12-minute mark, a celestial chant comes into play, giving a ghostly resonance to the piece. A similar chant arises near the end of “Sun Gong No. 2,” a far more radiant work that transitions Sun Gong to the complimentary Bring on the Sun.

Dubbed a “magical mixtape,” Laraaji brings a broader array of compositions to the eccentric Bring on the Sun. Where Sun Gong is dark and improvised, Bring on the Sun is made of weightless hypnotic loops (one is called “Laraajazzi”) and contemplative vocal tracks with standard song structures. If Sun Gong aims to relax its listeners, Bring on the Sun finds Laraaji connecting with them in more direct ways. On “Reborn in Virginia,” for instance, Laraaji openly recounts his upbringing “in the backwoods” using a bouncy blend of harp, tabla, and tambura. On the folk-influenced “Change,” he offers sage advice through a weathered baritone. “If you can boogie with life,” Laraaji asserts, “then you can boogie with change.”

In a world of mounting pressure, Sun Gong and Bring on the Sun are a collective, not-so-subtle nudge to turn down for a bit, continuing the same message Laraaji has touted for years. Yet in the current political and social climate, it seems the musician’s art is more relevant than ever. At this year’s Moogfest, for instance, Laraaji performed an overnight “sleep concert” that featured eight hours of faint echoes, zither, and light bells, all tailored to help participants fade into slumber. That makes Laraaji’s reemergence all the more fascinating: with stadium-sized pop dominating the electronic lexicon, the 73-year-old has come back into view by taking his same, exact opposite approach. Once the party is over, you need to get some rest.